Tag: anti-gay

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Oakland A’s Matt Joyce Suspended For 2 Games After Yelling Anti-Gay Slur At Fan

Oakland A’s Matt Joyce

Matt Joyce of the Oakland A’s has been suspended for two games after shouting an anti-gay slur at a fan during the A’s 8-6 loss to the Angels this past Friday.

BleacherReport has the details:

Oakland Athletics outfielder Matt Joyce used an anti-gay slur Friday night during a verbal exchange with a fan while the A’s were playing the Los Angeles Angels on the road.

Associated Press photographer Mark J. Terrill provided details, though he admitted to not hearing the beginning of the conversation, per ESPN.com. The Oakland right fielder said following the game he felt “regret” about the situation.

“It’s just one of those things that fans kind of get into the game. Obviously, we’re pretty frustrated on our side, and I had just hit a ball hard and had Cron [first baseman C.J. Cron] make a good play,” he said.

“I was walking back to the dugout and just had a fan yell some vulgar and obscene words. For me, it just wasn’t the right time to say some stuff like that. I fired back, and obviously as soon as you fire back, you regret saying anything, because it’s just not worth it.”

The Oakland A’s issued a statement via Twitter denouncing the slur:

The 33-year-old has previously played for the Detroit Tigers, Tampa Bay Rays, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and Pittsburgh Pirates.

Suspended for two games for the incident, Joyce has issued an apology on his Twitter:

The A’s are reportedly donating Joyce’s lost salary of nearly $54,000 to PFLAG.

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Indonesia: Two Gay Men Receive 83 Lashes For Having Consensual Sex

Two men received 83 lashes with a cane in Indonesia’s ultra-conservative Aceh province today for the crime of having consensual sex in the privacy of their home.

The men, aged 20 and 23, became the target of vigilantes when in March neighbors barged into an apartment, harassing the men, filming them with the intention of shaming them publicly.

This is the first incidence of gay men being caned under Sharia law in the province.

The public torture began at 9AM local time today and ended four hours later.

Throughout the punishment, locals cheered the canings.

One of the men was in his final year of medical school, but his hope of becoming a doctor is gone now. The school has kicked him out.

The student told the BBC, “I just want the caning to be over and to go back to my family, I have been deeply depressed. I am trying to pull myself out of a deep black hole.”

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Texas Congressman Weeps While Begging God To Forgive America For Marriage Equality

Oh, lord.

Republican Congressman Randy Weber became a weepy, crying mess on Wednesday night as he begged God to forgive America for allowing gay couples to get married.

Speaking at the annual “Washington – A Man of Prayer” event in Washington, D.C., Weber repeatedly got all teary-eyed while begging God to forgive America for the sins of marriage equality and abortion.

“We have endeavored to try and kick your word out of public schools.

“Father, we have endeavored to take the Bible out of classrooms, the Ten Commandments off the walls. Oh, Lord, forgive us. Father, we think we’re so smart, we have replaced your word and your precepts with drug-sniffing dogs, with metal detectors, with uniformed police officers in our schools. Oh, Lord, forgive us.

“Father, we have trampled on your holy institution of holy matrimony and tried to rewrite what it is and we’ve called it an alternate lifestyle. Father, oh Father, please forgive us.

“Lord, we have gone to killing the most innocent amongst.

“Your servant Moses warned in Deuteronomy 19 for us to choose life so that we and all our descendants might live. Father, we’re killing our descendants and we’re calling it a choice. Oh, God in heaven, forgive us, please.”

Watch the weeping below:

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Tennessee “Don’t Say Gay” Lawmaker Accused Of Adultery With Second Cousin

File this under “Christian Values Hypocrisy.”

Ye who protesteth the loudest, do it the mosteth!

Tennessee state Sen. Joey Hensley, four times married and divorced “Christian family values” crusader, has been named in the divorce filing for a local couple.

According to court documents, both parties in the divorce allege he’s been “having relations” with the wife for three years.

Apparently, having sex with your married second cousin is ok with Jesus, but whatever you do, “don’t say gay.”

From The Nashville Scene:

Hensley, 61, was subpoenaed to appear last week in Williamson County Circuit Court to testify in the divorce proceedings of Hohenwald Vice Mayor Don Barber and his wife Lori. He refused to show up, citing legislative and medical privilege. “I didn’t have time to do it,” Hensley said when contacted on Friday afternoon. “I had nothing to do with the court case, and any testimony I would have given wouldn’t have made any difference.” But according to the sworn testimony of both Barbers, Hensley has been having an affair with Lori since 2014. Lori, 48, is a part-time nurse in Hensley’s medical practice in Lewis County; she is also his second cousin.

Hensley gained national notoriety in 2012 as a sponsor of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which would have banned public school teachers from even mentioning that homosexuality exists. During one hearing that year, Hensley commented, “I don’t think Modern Family is appropriate for children to watch” — because it features a married gay couple raising children. This session, Hensley is sponsoring a bill from the Tennessee Family Action Council that would make children created using donor sperm illegitimate — an attempt to make it harder for gay and lesbian parents to establish paternity. He is also a sponsor of the so-called “Milo Bill,” aimed at liberal practices on college campuses.

But Lori Barber is not just a friend or a cousin or a lover — she is also Hensley’s patient. Barber testified in court that Hensley is her only doctor other than a cardiologist, and that she relies on him for recurrent Botox injections. She also said he has regularly prescribed her the hydrocodone pill Lortab — a Schedule II controlled substance — for “chronic back pain,” which she said Hensley first diagnosed after she hurt her neck.

Bolding is mine.

(h/t JoeMyGod)

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Susan “Cindy Brady” Olsen Fired From Radio Gig Over Anti-Gay Slurs

Susan Olsen, famous for playing the precocious  “Cindy Brady” 40 years ago on The Brady Bunch sitcom, got the boot from her Los Angeles talk radio gig after using extremely anti-gay slurs in a Facebook message made public.

Via Gay Star News:

The politically conservative Olsen, who played Cindy Brady on the classic sitcom, was incensed when out actor Leon Acord described as a ‘Trump fanatic’ and called for her to be fired from the radio show in Facebook post. He accused Olsen of spreading misinformation.

She sent him a private message calling him a ‘faggot’ more than once and a ‘pussy’ among other crude insults.
Acord screenshot the messages and made them public.

The station said in a statement on its Facebook page that it had ‘severed ties’ with Olsen but did not use her name in sharing the news.

‘LA Talk Radio takes pride in its close and collaborative relationship with the LGBT community, and will continue to provide a home for those who have hopeful and positive messages of togetherness and tolerance to share with our listeners.’

‘We will not tolerate hateful speech by anyone associated with our radio station and have severed our ties with a host that veered off the direction in which we are going.

‘Thank you for your loyalty and continued support. LA Talk Radio stands for love and community, and we will always support all of our friends around the world.’

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Tyler Clementi’s Roommate Gets Bias Convictions Overturned

Today, former Rutgers student Dharun Ravi, who’s anti-gay bullying led his roommate Tyler Clementi to commit suicide, saw his 15 count conviction overturned due to a change in state law in New Jersey.

Folks in the LGBT news world are stunned.

From NJ.com:

The appellate court sided with Ravi’s attorneys who had argued he never should have been charged with bias crimes and his convictions should be reversed. The court also ordered a new trial saying Ravi could not have received a fair trial as the bias evidence “permeated the trial.”

“It’s far from over,” Ravi’s attorney Steven Altman said Friday morning. “I’m extraordinarily pleased with the decision. I haven’t spoken with the Ravi family yet, but I can only imagine they’re pleased as well.”

The appellate decision arrives four years after Ravi’s conviction on several counts of bias intimidation and other charges following a highly publicized trial in New Brunswick, which put a national spotlight on cyber bullying.

Clementi, of Ridgewood, who was Ravi’s dorm mate at Rutgers University when the two were freshmen, jumped off the George Washington Bridge several days after the bullying incidents in September 2010 in which Ravi set up a remote webcam that spied on Clementi while he was having an intimate encounter with another man.

Ravi was not charged in Clementi’s death and his defense maintained the webcam incidents had nothing to do with Clementi’s decision to commit suicide. He was sentenced — and has already served — his 30-day sentence, three years of probation and 300 hours of community service.

After Ravi’s conviction in 2012, the state Supreme Court in a separate case struck down part of the state’s bias crime statute that focused on the victim’s state of mind. According to that case, it is the defendant’s state of mind and intent that is important, not the victim’s.

The appellate court said the prosecution conceded in its oral arguments four of Ravi’s bias convictions should “be void as a matter of law,” and, accordingly, dismissed those charges with prejudice. The court also dismissed Ravi’s conviction on hindering his own apprehension and tampering with witnesses.

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Viral Tweet Of The Day

Some free advice – moments after you decide to start following your professor, don’t call him out as a “faggot.”

From Gay Star News:

Dr Eric Mendenhall is an assistant professor in Genomics and Epigenetics at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

He picked up on the tweet, in which his student called him a faggot, although his Twitter handle wasn’t used – and immediately replied in the best way.

‘I don’t condone use of that term & it has nothing to do with my ability to teach you genetics,’ Mendenhall wrote.

‘See you Thursday.’

As the tweet took off, Mendenhall used the chance to teach his followers another lesson: ‘Each generation shedding some of the hate and bigotry of their parents’ generation is a key part of being human.’

In conversations with a number of replies, he said all other University of Alabama students had been ‘wonderful’ since he started teaching there three years ago.

He also offered any queer STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) students the opportunity to talk to him should they have problems.

‘I got your back with peers like this,’ Mendenhall tweeted.

Apparently, the student had just started following Dr. Mendenhall when he sent the anti-gay tweet out.

Within an hour the student made his account private, and soon after he deleted the account.

The exchange has been “liked” over 20K and retweeted over 16K times.

By the way, the professor made a point to say the comment would not affect grades.

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Maine Gov. Paul LePage Goes On Gay Slur Rant To State Democratic Legislator

Maine Gov. Paul LePage is getting attention this morning after a recorded phone call he made has come to light.

In the phone call, made to Democratic State Rep. Drew Gattine on Thursday, the bombastic Republican ripped off a series of gay slurs in an angry rant.

Via CNN:

“Mr. Gattine, this is Gov. Paul Richard LePage,” the audio recording says. “I would like to talk to you about your comments about my being a racist, you (obscene term). I want to talk to you. I want you to prove that I’m a racist. I’ve spent my life helping black people and you little (obscene term), socialist (obscene term). You — I need you to — just friggin’. I want you to record this and make it public because I am after you. Thank you.”

It may come as no surprise that LePage is an ardent supporter of Donald Trump.

In an interview today, the governor also said if this were 1825 he would challenge Gattine to a duel and shoot him between the eyes.

He seems nice, huh?

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Georgia Man Sentenced To 40 Years In Prison For Pouring Boiling Water On Sleeping Gay Men

Anthony Gooden

A Georgia man has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for his vicious attack pouring boiling water on two gay men as they slept.

From ABC News:

Jurors deliberated for about 90 minutes before finding Martin Blackwell, 48, guilty of eight counts of aggravated battery and two counts of aggravated assault in the February attack on Anthony Gooden and Marquez Tolbert.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Henry Newkirk said the evidence was overwhelming and that Blackwell had behaved in a soulless and malicious way. He noted that it “takes a long time” for a pot of water to boil.

“You had so many outs where the voice of reason could have taken over,” the judge told Blackwell, who had faced up to 80 years in prison.

Prosecutors said it was a vicious, premeditated attack. Tolbert testified that after pouring hot water on them, Blackwell grabbed him as he jumped and screamed in pain and told him: “Get out of my house with all that gay.”

Blackwell’s attorney, Monique Walker, attempted to downplay the outright homophobia telling the jury, “It’s not about hate. It’s about old-school culture, old-school thinking.”

As the prosecutor pointed out, it took time to find the biggest pot in the house, fill it, and boil that water. That was a lot of time to think hard about what you were about to do, Mr. Blackwell.

The victims spent weeks in the hospital due to severe burns, undergoing many surgeries and skin grafts.

Left unable to perform many daily tasks, a GoFundMe campaign has raised over $70,000 to help with medical bills and recovery.

I previously wrote about the attack in March of this year when it happened. More details here.

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Pastor Who Claimed Whole Foods Wrote Homophobic Slur On Cake Stands Down

Texas pastor Jordan Brown claimed Whole Foods wrote anti-gay slur on his cake

A local Texas pastor, Jordan Brown, had recently filed a lawsuit against a bakery department associate at Whole Foods claiming the associate wrote an anti-gay slur on a cake he purchased. According to the suit, he asked employees in the bakery department to write “Love Wins” on a blank, pre-frosted cake.

Brown told the media at the time that the employee wrote “Love Wins FAG” on the cake.

Now, Brown has changed his tune, issuing the following statement:

“Today I am dismissing my lawsuit against Whole Foods Market. The company did nothing wrong. I was wrong to pursue this matter and use the media to perpetuate this story.

“I want to apologize to Whole Foods and its team members for questioning the company’s commitment to its values, and especially the bakery associate who I understand was put in a terrible position because of my actions.

“I apologize to the LGBT community for diverting attention from real issues. I also want to apologize to my partner, my family, my church family, and my attorney.”
-Jordan Brown

Whole Foods Market, responds to the local pastor dismissing his lawsuit:

“We’re very pleased that the truth has come to light. Given Mr. Brown’s apology and public admission that his story was a complete fabrication, we see no reason to move forward with our counter suit to defend the integrity of our brand and team members.”